Syriana (15)

AS IF winning Oscar nominations for directing and writing Good Night, And Good Luck wasn't enough for George Clooney, he's back again as a best supporting actor nominee in what is likely to be the year's most complex Hollywood film.

AS IF winning Oscar nominations for directing and writing Good Night, And Good Luck wasn't enough for George Clooney, he's back again as a best supporting actor nominee in what is likely to be the year's most complex Hollywood film.

Rising fuel prices run through its 128-minute core, making this the most prescient release since the Oscar-nominated Crash followed last summer's London suicide bombings.

But, while I hugely admired writer-director Stephen Gaghan's last similarly ambitious film, Traffic, Syriana annoyed me by constantly changing locations and throwing in various unconnected characters at the expense of traditional thriller momentum.

That said it does reflect the madness of today's new world disorder.

Then there's topless George, not quite so gorgeous for the girls after bulking up by more than two stone to play an under-investigation CIA operative finding out some home truths.

Matt Damon is less fulfilled as a progressive young oil broker with a family tragedy on his hands as well as a potentially useful alliance with an idealistic Gulf prince.

Meanwhile, corporate lawyer Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) wonders about the morality of a merger between two US oil giants while on a smaller, but potentially significant scale, there's the story of a cleric tapping into the mindset of a disenfranchised Pakistani teenager (Mazhar Munir).

With the top flight cast also including Christopher Plummer, Chris Cooper and Amanda Peet, Syriana is a real melting pot fusing everything from Persian workers' rights to back-room deals in Washington.

And it's all set against the backdrop of two Gulf wars, ordinary family life and a superpower state where oil is running out.

Arriving like an international relation of The Constant Gardener (still showing at Erdington Showcase) Syriana eventually bubbles up into surely the most spectacular sequence ever filmed involving a Solihull-built Range Rover.